Projekte

Marschen Projects 1:
A thematic summer festival in the “Zone of Metamorphosis”

With a festival on August 22, the oesterfeld04 residency, together with the Marschenprojekte e.V. association, will celebrate the start of their promising collaboration. Since July 2026, the association has been recognized as a nonprofit and is eligible to apply for project funding: for artistic work and research that originates here and whose results will be presented here in various formats to a diverse audience. Here in the Marsch, the shifting zone between land and water - a zone of transformation, of multiform metamorphosis.

The festival is intended as the first joint project between the association and the residency: it will showcase various artistic works that thematically open up space for future projects while also building on the programmatic projects that have already taken place at the residency since 2024. The festival also serves as a platform for exchange and networking: it welcomes people from very diverse backgrounds - artists, experts, and art enthusiasts of all generations and origins, from the region, from Hamburg, and international guests.

The thematic arc stems from two works by Jelka Plate, a visual artist and set designer. As a fellow of the Performing Arts Fund, she used oesterfeld04 to realize two projects: Human Hibernation and DisAppearances. Her presentation officially opened the residency in September 2024. Both projects critically examine the role of humans as the crown of creation, advocate for a slower pace of life, and call for a transformation toward new forms of cooperation between human and non-human beings. The video work on Hibernation is located on the first floor, in the same room that served as the habitat for Jelka Plate’s Hibernation in February 2024. Jelka Plate was awarded the 2024 Höge Prize by the Höge Foundation for her work.

Another programmatic project, presented at oesterfeld04 in May 2025, addresses - in a very different way - the theme of metamorphosis and transformation: This is Not the Final Story was the final project by the late performance artist Ella Huck, in which she explored the themes of loss, death, and transformation in a cross-genre and taboo-breaking manner. One example from her extensive exhibition is the textile work “Kokon,” which will be shown once again at the festival: together with her sister and the artist Antoni Knigge, Ella Huck hand-knitted favorite garments belonging to friends for this piece.
The other works on view at the venue are contributions by two artists who have not yet worked at the residency and who are presenting their works here themselves. Lene Markusen is showing her video work The Farm after the Feminist Ecological Revolution, a utopian vision that is very much grounded in her own experience and knowledge as a farmer’s daughter, as she explains in her introduction.
The young Dutch artist Daniel Siegersma is presenting a participatory video work titled Making a Mountain out of a Molehill, which features very special moles that can tell stories about what they discover once they begin digging deep into the ground where they live.
Both works engage artistically and very concretely with the ground, the earth, and the life on and within it - across historical, present, and future times.

In addition to the video installations, there is a special information table on the topics of water and land located in a central spot on the first floor. We would like to thank Urte Andresen for providing us with a special archive on coastal protection and dike construction: that of her father, Friedrich Heddies Andresen, one of the leading architects of the Wadden Sea National Park. In the 1980s, he served as head of the Schleswig-Holstein Office for Water and Agriculture and later as director of the Wadden Sea National Park. We gain insight into his documents, can study maps, technical drawings, and other illustrative material, and learn details about the contentious issues of land reclamation and dike construction, as well as coastal and nature conservation - insightful, historical material for potential artistic research that offers a very special perspective on existential themes in the marshlands, which are more relevant than ever.

In the two attic spaces (the studio and the Owl Attic) sculptural works are on display: The Great Spirit and the Little Spirit - puppets made of wood and fabric, crafted by master puppet maker Yaya Coulibaly from Mali (participant of documenta fifteen). They connect us with the forces of the world of spirits and they were brought to life by performers from the transnational performance group Hajusom in the production Paradise Mastaz (2011). For this project, Hajusom collaborated with Yaya Coulibaly and invited him to Hamburg-Kampnagel; the puppets for the performance were created in Österfeld during a week-long workshop.

On the small stage in the foyer, performance artist Katharina Oberlik, together with musician Lia (aka Anahita Project), presents a puppet performance titled Mummy Water. Two non-human beings discuss the unique qualities of the element water, their experiences as beings in water, and, along the way, the state of the world. Katharina Oberlik, co-founder of the internationally active performance group She She Pop, led the art camp oesterfeld04 for women in Österfeld over the Pentecost holidays in 2026: the participants realize their visions of themselves and the world through various performative formats, resulting in eight site-specific performances in different rooms throughout the house and in the garden; a public presentation is planned for the spring.

On the Owl Attic - or, more precisely, the Barn Owl Attic - hovers Volker März’s sculpture Falling Angel - the planet is burning, the angel (of progress) is falling - -
We thank the artist for the loan.

DJ AOL, DJ Eliza, and DJ Lorenzo create a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere in the garden: they spin records at the Shed Café Dike-View, with music that primarily evokes coastal regions and celestial realms in Italy and the vastness of the cosmos.

A young team of gourmet friends - artists in the culinary garden - takes care of the food and drinks: Indigo Jenal, Lukas Ghassemimolahajlou, and Franziska Weinberger.

The Marschenprojekte e.V. association thanks all participating artists for their contributions. They have made a strong start to the association’s activities possible!